First and foremost, industries that consume a lot of electricity are given discount. This will actually promote wastage as it’s cheaper to waste electricity than being energy efficient. The industry that reduces its energy consumption while maximizing output should be rewarded, as their energy footprint per product is reduced. Industries that support ‘true’ energy efficiency approaches through real engineering solutions must also be promoted. Power Factor requirement enforcement must also be done by providing industrial and commercial consumers proper guidance on how to improve power factor through usage of capacitor banks.

Secondly, energy efficiency labeling of electrical and electronic goods lacks very much. Currently, locally designed labeling is only available for refrigerators and industrial High Efficiency Motors (HEM). What about the rest? Labeling and enforcement must be there to ensure consumers can make a right choice to reduce their energy consumption.

Thirdly, unification of energy sectors as a whole. Too many agencies are involved in energy industry. There should be one agency that is in charge of energy from source, generation, supply and pricing. This agency must be able to connect to all related agencies to function and not a ‘stand alone’ agency.

Fourthly, search for new resources for energy is the current focus. There is no solid move towards ensuring energy efficiency in all levels. For example, does the steam produced in all our power plants being fully utilized? This utilization ensures that energy conversion loss is reduced. There should be integrated power generation to supply excess steam that can be reused for processes. It has been practiced in many countries even many years ago to maximize utilization of energy source. Efficiency can be placed in products through innovations.

Even if energy demand is met with huge investments through many forms of engagements, no one would agree that it should be supplied to be wasted. There will never be a real cost benefit analysis as we are buying electricity to waste. We urge the government to tackle energy efficiency issues before moving forward with solving predicted energy crisis.